Young women arrested in Oz Tzion

Tuesday, March 27, 8:18 Three young women staying at the Oz Tzion outpost were arrested yesterday by border police on suspicion of violating a closed military zone order and released after interrogation.

Yesterday (Monday) afternoon border police raided the Oz Tzion outpost in the Binyamin region. After a short chase they apprehended three young women, two minors and one adult, staying at the site.

R., one of the young women arrested, recounted the incident, “We were at the site when suddenly border policemen arrived and tried to arrest us. It’s a standard procedure with them to raid an outpost from time to time and arrest anyone whom they can catch. Two of my friends and I tried to escape, but the police caught us quickly enough. They held us forcefully and took us to the police station.

“When we arrived at the entrance to the police station there were tissues scattered on floor. One of the policemen asked us to pick them up and when we didn’t respond the policemen became very angry, pulled us roughly and threw us off to the side. One of the policemen accused one of the women of littering in a public place, even though he hadn’t seen her throwing the tissues on the floor, and wrote her a 750 NIS ticket. He told her that she would receive the ticket in the mail.

“Later when we asked to phone an attorney they told us that we should give them the number. Because our cell phones had been confiscated we did not have a number to give them and therefore we did not speak to an attorney at all.”

During interrogation the young women were charged with violating a closed military zone order and disturbing a policemen in the line of duty. After being asked several questions about the outpost they were freed on bail.

To reiterate, on Saturday night a yeshiva student was arrested at Oz Tzion on suspicion of shooting at Arabs during a skirmish on Shabbat. The student, who does not possess any firearms, was interrogated and spent the night in remand. In the end he was unconditionally released at the police station.